‘I am kept here by force and treachery. The gipsy is a creature of the Marquis of Brinvilliers, who has carried me from the theatre. He is absent for a while; and I am trying the force of my fascinations upon my gaoler, the more readily to compass the means of escape. From whom do you seek asylum here?’
‘I know not,’ said poor Louise, ‘who is my enemy. I do not believe that Gaudin would ever——’
She was interrupted by Marotte. ‘Gaudin de Sainte-Croix?’
Louise assented.
‘Fear the worst,’ said her companion. ‘If Sainte-Croix is your friend,’ and she laid an ironical expression on the word, ‘you are indeed deserving of pity.’
Louise was about to speak, when a clamour in the street below attracted their attention. Marotte uttered a cry of joy, and pointing down the Rue d’Enfer, of which the window commanded a view, cried—
‘Look! look!—we are saved!—we are saved!’
Louise followed the direction of her finger, and saw a heavy and magnificently decorated carriage, which, with its attendant lackeys, had just drawn up at the miserable door of a house exactly opposite to the one in which they were. A beautiful young woman, in rich costume, descended from it, and entered the house. Marotte Dupré, with clasped hands, followed her movements with intense anxiety.
‘There is not a moment to lose. O mon Dieu!’ she exclaimed as she hastily drew some writing-tablets from her bosom, and, tearing out a leaf, wrote a few lines upon it with marvellous rapidity. ‘Now—now!’ she continued, rolling it up into a ball. ‘Open the window!’
‘Alas!’ returned Louise, as she tried the hasp of the heavy casement; ‘it is secured. I cannot unfasten it.’